Wager of Battle: A Tale of Saxon Slavery in Sherwood ForestHerbert, Henry William
History
Wager of Battle: A Tale of Saxon Slavery in Sherwood Forest
Herbert, Henry William
Anglo-Saxons -- Fiction; Great Britain -- History -- Norman period, 1066-1154 -- Fiction; Sherwood Forest (England) -- Fiction
"Because thou couldst not give it, if thou wouldst; and wouldst not,
if thou couldst. Go thy way, go thy way! We shall meet one day, in
that place whither our deeds will carry us. Go thy way, unless thou
wouldst stay, and look how a Norman dies. I fear neither death, nor
thee. Go thy way, and the fiend go with thee."
And, with the word, he went his way, coldly, sternly, pitilessly, and
in silence; for he felt, in truth, that the seneschal had spoken
truly, that he could not save him if he would, unless he would save
his own sworn destroyer. Sullenly, slowly, he rowed onward, reached
the land; and still, as he looked back, with his horse's neck and his
armed trunk eminent above the level waters, glittering in his bright
mail, sat the fearless rider. Wearied and utterly exhausted, both in
mind and body, the serf gazed, half-remorsefully, at the man whom he
had so mercilessly abandoned to his fate, and who bore it so sternly,
awaiting the last inevitable moment with more than a stoic's fortitude
and pride. For a moment he hesitated whether he should pursue his
journey; but an irresistible fascination compelled him to sit down and
await the end, and he did so.
And there those two sat, face to face, at a mile's distance, for a
long half hour, in plain view, each almost fancying that he could
peruse the features, almost fancying that he could read the thoughts
of his enemy--each in agony of soul, and he, perhaps, in the greater
anguish who had escaped, as it would seem, all peril, and for whom
death seemed to wait, distant and unseen, at the end of a far
perspective.
At the termination of half an hour, there was a motion, a strife--the
water had reached the nostrils of the charger. He tossed his head a
few times, angrily; then, after rearing once or twice, with his rider
yet erect in his saddle, subsided into deep water, and all was over.
Eadwulf crept away up the bank, found a thick dingle in the wood, and,
coiling himself up in its densest spot, slept, dreamless and
unrepentant, until the morrow's sun was high in heaven.
CHAPTER XIX.
THE SUPPLIANT.
Brother, be now true to me,
And I shall be as true to thee;
As wise God me speed.
AMYS AND AMYLLION.
The year had by this time worn onward to the last days of summer, or
one might almost say to the earliest days of autumn, and the lovely
scenery of the lake country had begun to assume its most beautiful and
picturesque coloring.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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